cover image: National Pharmacare: Laying the Groundwork

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National Pharmacare: Laying the Groundwork

12 Feb 2024

A key factor in the national pharmacare debate is the public cost, which the Parlia- mentary Budget Office estimated would be $11.2 billion in 2024-25 if the national list of drugs was the same as the list used by the Quebec provincial plan. [...] They included the Royal Commission on Health Services (1964), also known as the Hall Commission; the National Forum on Health (1997); the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (2002), also known as the Romanow commission; the Study on the State of the Health Care System in Canada (2003), also known as the Kirby commission; and, most recently, the Advisory Council on the Implementation. [...] The federal government announced three pharmacare initiatives in its 2019 budget: the creation of the Canadian Drug Agency to assess the effectiveness of new prescription drugs and negotiate prices on behalf of Canadians, the development of a national list of covered drugs (a formulary) and the creation of a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases. [...] Nota- bly, the overall budget for the plan would have a great deal of flexibility, as the 12 IRPP Insight | February 2024 fi nancial commitment from the federal government would be determined by the initial size of the formulary and the reinsurance threshold. [...] The ultimate size of the formulary would depend on the level of funding provided to the program and how much of the cost is charged to patients.
Pages
22
Published in
Canada